The First 100 Years Are The Hardest

Successfully activated K-4423 gain today.   This was my first time to activate using the mobile set up in my Jeep with the new-to-me Yaesu FT-100D and ATAS-120a antenna. The FT-100D doesn't support headphones, external MIC or digital voice recording.  You can connect an external speaker.   Something to consider for future operating comfort. Also  I logged all contacts using HAMRS on my iPhone.  Works fine, but the iphone keyboard layout is awkward - you have to toggle between letters and numbers which slowed my down when logging call signs.  I'll stick to the ipad version with external keyboard for future activations. Overall I made 40 contacts with 100% SSB including 10 P2P.  The first 25 were on 17M with good signal reports.  I had to fight thru a bit of QRM, with whistling and others tuning up on my frequency during the activation.  Was even told by someone who failed to identify their callsign that contests were not allowed on 1...

The international DX contest was this weekend March 5th and 6th.  The contest is designed to encourage W/VE stations to expand knowledge of DX propagation on the HF and MF bands, improve operating skills, and improve station capability by creating a competition in which DX stations may only contact W/VE stations.  I started Saturday morning using my relatively new ZS6BKW antenna.   It lived up to its reputation as a modified G5RV.  Optimized or not, I struggled to make any contacts.  I could hear plenty of DX but most stations couldn't hear me.  I completed 1 QSO on 80, 1 on 40, and a few more on 20 before giving up for the day with 12 QSOs logged.  I fired up the amp but that didn't make much difference.    On Sunday I switched over to my Wolf River Coil and manually tuned the antenna for each band using the wonderfully "Made in Ukraine" RigExpert AA55 Zoom antenna analyzer.   The WRC is easy to tune for 10, 15 and 20 met...